Better Dead Than Red
by Digsjin
Summary: Q sends a libertarian computer programmer to the Star Trek Universe, he is disappointed to find out the Federation is not the Utopia it was made out to be and becomes a space pirate with very few scruples. Star Trek SI/OC, Augment.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: A Not so Random Omnipotent Bastard**

There are a lot of things that I would've never thought would happen to me in my lifetime, me being one of the programmers who helped code the first turingrade A.I being one of them, and yes, if you're wondering we did end up naming him Alan, though I very enthusiastically pushed for him to be named Skynet or SHODAN, both names were rejected out of hand, due to what I grudgingly admit are fairly valid reasons, reasons such as, and I quote: '_we don't want it to get ideas John_' and '_what the fuck is wrong with you?!_'.

Now, being a member of the team, which made what was arguably the greatest achievement of the twenty-first century a possibility, was high up there on the list of things that I as a Comp-Sci major didn't expect, on the other hand, my very extreme surprise at that fact paled in comparison to what I was experiencing now.

You see, of all the things, I, a reasonably sane and grounded human would've expected to ever see, a young John de Lancie wearing Jedi robes and standing in what I could only describe as an unending grey Limbo was very much not one of them.

"I'm going to assume that I took some bad acid earlier today.", I said my expression fixed to resemble that of a bored security guard, though inwardly I'm not ashamed to admit I was panicking.

De Lancie snorted and in a very familiar condescending tone that I was really hoping not to hear said: "I'm afraid your primitive monkey-brain couldn't even conceive what it was seeing, with or without the aid of hallucinogens, so I'm afraid your first guess is wrong, pity that I thought you were _relatively_ smart."

'_Relatively_' said in such a way that made clear he didn't think highly of humans.

"Q?", I hedged, barely cognizant of how stupid the idea that a god from a fictional universe was standing right in front of me would've sounded to anyone, let alone one of my colleagues from the University.

"Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!", the now definitively identified Q said sarcastically yet somehow excitedly at the same time as colorful strobe lights and confetti appeared from out of nowhere to accentuate his point.

"W-where am I?", I finally asked. Normally I would've been snarky as hell, but under the circumstances, I didn't think a little meek humility would hurt my chances.

"Seriously! That's what you think to ask, no, 'Star Trek is real?', or 'Why John de Lancie of all people?'", he said, but before I could interject with "_I've heard about Parallel Universes_" and "_I'm guessing Gene Roddenberry's casting choices_" respectively, he continued.

"You're in, well, let's call it the Void, a sort of space between different Multiverses in the greater Omniverse, though it's not really 'space' as you would understand it…", he trailed off here for a second before getting back on track, "At any rate bucko, you died and I'm here to make you a once in a death-time limited offer, so what do you say?"

I blinked hard for a solid second, then did it a second time until my thoughts were finally in order, "You know, that's an awful lot to spring on a guy.", I said.

Q snorted derisively again, "It's two bits of information monkey-brain, you died, and I have an offer for you."

"I mean, yeah, but that gives me more questions than answers, for starters how did I die and what could you possibly be offering?", for my latter question I had a sneaking suspicion of what it was.

He shook his head and rubbed his nose in the perfect impersonation of a parent whose kid had asked a very dumb question for the umpteenth time.

"Aneurysm, go to my home universe, that clear enough for you monkey-brain?", he said sounding out each syllable, which somehow annoyed me more than the nickname he came up with for me.

"Just one more question", I said, not bothering to hide my dislike for the omnipotent tsundere behind a bored façade anymore.

He rolled his eyes in irritation as if to say, '_well, get on with it?_'

"Why I mean why send someone there at all, and why me specifically?", I asked legitimately curious.

He looked thoughtful at that, though whether he didn't know the answer or was just wondering how much he wanted me to know I couldn't say, "I'm guessing you already know about my self-appointed task?", he asked me with an inscrutable expression.

I nodded and I wasn't lying either. It was a fan-theory that got kicked around for a while, that Q was actually looking out for humanity through his own twisted but fairly effective '_exposure therapy_', the idea was that he exposed The Enterprise to himself and the Borg in order to get the Federation to prepare for war with the Cardassians and the Dominion, a war which they would've lost if they hadn't militarized thanks to Q.

"Well, since you do actually know-", the fact that he could read my mind discomforted me more than it should have under the circumstances, "I suppose there's no harm in telling you, I need you to do my job for me, in your little TV-Show my plan works out and the Dominion loses, in my home universe however…"

He didn't bother to finish his sentence, he didn't need to either, the implications were clear enough on their own.

"You didn't answer the second question though, why choose me?"

"Tut, tut, tut mon ami, all good things to those who wait.", he said with an infuriatingly smug grin, "you forget I'm not under any obligation to answer you, but let's just say knowing what I know about you I suspect you'll make it interesting."

I accepted his explanation with a nod but grit my teeth all the same. I hated being bent over a barrel and patronized by someone with a passion, even if that someone happened to be omnipotent it seems.

"I accept, but I have one last question", I said and unlike his earlier snark, he put on a haughty expression and indulged me.

"What race am I going to be?", I asked and hoped I didn't just give him a wonderful terrible idea.

He laughed, "I think it'll be more fun when you find out for yourself, ta, ta.", he snapped his fingers as the same blinding light and sound-effect from the show enveloped me.

"**taHqeq!**", I cursed at him in Klingon, under the circumstances of what I was dreading the most it seemed appropriate.


	2. Chapter I

**Chapter I: Moving Up******

**Personal Log; Stardate: 20582**: "_It's way too cold on this fucking planet!_"

I was five years old when my brain matured enough for me to regain any semblance of coherent thought rather than the bulk intake of basic information that to the best of my knowledge toddlers from all humanoid races are forced to endure during their formative years.

Though whether my definition of _five years_ was strictly _correct_ under the circumstances I couldn't definitively say. Solar Cycles as we knew them on earth were an absolutely terrible way to keep track of time on Andoria, seeing as it's a moon and the day/night cycle is similar to what one would expect in Svalbard, Norway. Rather, a year on Andoria is measured when the aforementioned cycle changes from being constantly daytime to constantly nighttime, and don't even get me started on how the Aenar measure time!

Speaking of which, yes, it seems that Q managed to not be a huge dick, while somehow still being a huge dick. You see, I feared being reincarnated as a Klingon because I was never the most, how shall I say… _athletic_ person back on earth and a culture where one's entire standing is determined by how well you can beat the shit of your contemporaries is not one where I would've found myself prospering.

Something which Q clearly picked up on or knew about beforehand as he decided to reincarnate me into the Federation's most militaristic race, namely the Andorians. Though he didn't just make me a regular Andorian, oh no, that would've been much too simple for our lord and savior Q.

I was _re_-born an Andorian-Aenar Hybrid, meaning that instead of darkish blue skin mine was a sort of light sky blue, on the plus side this did mean I had enhanced senses compared to when I was a human and I even had one of Star Trek's most bullshit pseudosciency unexplained phenomenons at my disposal, I had thankfully inherited my new mother's telepathic powers, though they weren't as strong as hers they were basically still on the level of Deanna Troy, meaning no carbon-based life-form had a snowball's chance in hell of lying to me.

This did come with a few downsides, even a hundred years after the discovery of the Aenar subspecies, hybrids were still extremely rare and to my surprise were relentlessly bullied in school, something which I could handle being an adult, but still, my stuff constantly going missing and classmates refusing to let me get a word in edgewise was extremely annoying.

Thankfully, however it didn't last very long, I did eventually get bumped up in grades because unlike other fanfictions would have you believe, the material that they teach primary school children isn't radically different from what one would've learned in the 19th century even and science and math only really gets harder in middle-school as I found out later.

The way I managed to get moved up was kind of funny though. You see, I'm a person with a remarkably short attention span when it comes to things that bore me and having to sit in a classroom going through basic math that I could do if I was woken from a drunken stupor or learning to read and write properly, something that I had '_picked up_' before entering school much to my parents' delight, was something that bored me relentlessly and since I didn't have the option of doodling on the edges of my notebook seeing as we used Pads and the teachers were ruthless disciplinarians if a student tried to click away from the work they were meant to be doing I instead decided to pull a prank that got me into the principals' office and into very deep shit for a nine-year-old.

My '_first brush with the law_' was still firmly ingrained in my memory.

"Sharra," the principle, a grizzled old Andorian soldier began by saying my new name in a threatening manner and massaging the area under his antennae to mitigate the headache I knew for a fact he was experiencing thanks to my telepathy, "could you please tell me why on Andoria you would hack the pads to play that abominable song!?" He said, his volume steadily rising as the sentence dragged on.

The song just happened to be my mumbled rendition of the Nyan Cat song looped for about ten hours, the pads had been a bitch and a half to hack too, seeing as the standard Federation programing language they were coded in wasn't at all like Python or Java, the closest equivalent on my earth was SPL or Shakespeare Programming Language, a programming language that had been designed by a guy with too much time on his hands to prove a point and something that was making my forays in 23rd Century Comp-Sci more challenging than it had any right to be.

"Because I was bored," I answered honestly and suppressed a grin at the throbbing vane that suddenly appeared on the man's forehead.

"If you were bored," he hissed through grit teeth and I could tell the old man was making a very large effort not to dash my head against the wall, something for which I was grateful, but I wasn't going to tell him that, " why didn't you do your work instead?"

I shrugged and said: "Because I finished all of it."

Now _that_ got his attention, outwardly he was still fuming but due to my sixth sense, I could tell he was curious or at the very least marginally impressed that I had decided to go with such an audacious lie if that was the case.

"Show me.", he said simply, and I was happy to oblige by handing him my Pad.

He idly flicked through it, keeping a stern face throughout, but once again I could tell he was impressed if not completely flabbergasted since I had also finished work meant for students two years older than me.

"Sharra." He said to get my attention.

"Yes?"

"How would like to move up a couple of years?"

"I'd like that very much," I answered with a small smug smile despite myself.

"There's just one thing, I need to take you to the nurse to run some tests before your transfer."

I sensed _Pity_ and _Curiosity_ among an odd cocktail of emotions directed at me.

"May I ask why?" Outwardly I was calm, but internally I was quite close to panicking, this was the first time something had majorly deviated from my 'master plan' after all and if my worst fears proved true getting recruited into _**Section 31**_ would completely derail it.

"Of course." He said with a slight incline of the head, "I won't dumb it down for you seeing as your little stunt proved you're much smarter than we thought. Tell me, have you covered 'Augments' in history yet?"

I nodded, we hadn't covered Earth history yet, but Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was my favorite movie of the franchise, so I was aware of the Eugenics Wars and the repercussions it had for the Federation's legislation.

"So, you are aware of the illegality of genetic modifications that go above and beyond medicinal purposes?"

I could tell where this was going now, but that didn't make me any less nervous. Q could've made me an Andorian Augment without my knowledge and if that was the case both myself and my parents would be in very deep shit.

Well, my mother and I at any rate, as far as I was concerned my 'Father' and my three stepmoms could go fuck themselves, seriously, I once coded a fully working version of Pong on the kitchen replicator and the guy proceeded to lynch my ass for '_playing with the replicator_' and the less said about his polygamous relationship the better.

"I'll be frank, such an intellect at your age is unprecedented for Andorians or Aenars, even hybrids such as yourself, the only viable ways such a thing could happen are either you're a once in a millennium prodigy or someone having altered your genome."

I smiled hesitantly at the praise, but I was still nervous.

Eventually, he did take me to the Nurse's office, a sweet Andorian woman whose name I didn't bother to remember. She took a bit of blood after the principal had explained the situation and to my immense relief it turned out I wasn't an Augment.

The principal let me go home early that day and he sent a message to meet him about bumping me up as soon as it was convenient.

Mom was gushing with pride, Dad was internally proud, my half-siblings were jealous, and as usual, my Stepmoms hated me.

Overall it was a benign, yet nerve-wracking experience due to the fact I didn't know how much Q had intervened, a common theme in my new life you'll notice.

But credit where credit is due, the whole ordeal gave me an idea.

It gave me a wonderful idea.

It gave me a wonderful, terrible idea.


	3. Chapter II

**Chapter II: Fare-Dodging******

**Personal Log; Stardate: 21591**: "_A society which values equality more than it does freedom will achieve neither, a society which values freedom and dismisses equality as unimportant will end up achieving a great deal of both."_

Did you know that Andorians had a tradition that involves kicking their ten-year-olds out into the woods with only the clothes on their backs and food for about week so they can learn to hunt by themselves through trial and potentially fatal error?

No?

Well, don't blame yourself because I only learned about that today when my dad kicked me out of the house and told me to bring him the biggest animal I could reasonably hunt and to not even think about coming back empty-handed.

I mean, I knew Andorians had weird traditions, the Ushaan, essentially a duel to the death with over twelve-thousand rules and regulations springs to the forefront of my mind, but I never considered that they'd basically take a page out of Randyll Tarly's book, not because the tradition itself is out of character for a warrior race, no because as you may or may not know Andorians have a remarkably fast metabolism, meaning it is really easy for us to starve to death or die of an infection, both of which are very real dangers in the wilderness on this icy moon, something which led me to believe that in the early days the survival rate for this challenge would've been detrimental to our growth as a species.

Not to mention the fact that I didn't get a weapon. Animals on Andoria were few and far between and the ones that you could find were no joke, rather than docile Ton Tons most could be compared to Wompas. Pondering it further I figured that the only ones that I could really kill were the Andorian equivalent of the common deer, but there was no way I could kill one with my bare hands as they vaguely resembled giant crustaceans, and their shells were extremely durable.

Which means before I did anything, I'd have to build some sort of club to smash them over the head with like a fucking Vogon.

It was while I was contemplating how not to starve to death when a stray yet very welcome thought hit me like a freight train; "_I have a week to myself without any supervision whatsoever._"

A smile began to play at my features and I'm pretty sure both my antennae twitched in excitement, a plan that had the potential to make or break me began to form and coalesce in my mind and it all hinged on one half-remembered name, _Adigeon Prime_.

My grin at the time could've charitably been described as shit-eating as I ran back towards my home through the woods. I had no intention of actually going into the house, but the little snowmobile that I built out of replicated parts last year was nearby and if I wanted this to work, I needed to get to the capital's Spaceport ASAP.

I took off a large tarp that saved me the trouble of having to dig it out every time there was a snowstorm, which is to say every other day and revealed the snowmobile that I'd affectionally dubbed 'Snowy _McSnowface_'. Overall it looked like a ramshackle piece of shit made out of scrap metal, I was no mechanic in any sense of the word, but in order to fulfill my 'god'-given task whilst mitigating the very real risk to my continued existence I'd decided early on in my new life that I'd have to become a veritable jack of all trades and honestly even if it looked like something the Orks would clobber together while blindfolded I didn't really care so long as it worked.

And work it did, it used a V8 Engine that I had replicated from a pattern that some car aficionado had uploaded to the net and the pattern for Diesel was rarely used, but to my surprise wasn't one of the restricted goods on Federation replicators. With my Andorian reflexes, I was comfortably able to go at a speed of about 200km/h and I made pretty good time.

And yes, to both my delight and shame the first time I did this I shouted: "Now this is podracing!"

Once I arrived at the capital of this particular commissariat, essentially the equivalent of '_states_' or '_regions_' on Andoria, was where my plan began to rely less on skill and more on luck, but the prize was so tempting for a transhumanist like me that I honestly couldn't care less. I made my way to the spaceport, essentially a place where several small freighters would land and mostly ferry people from planet to planet in exchange for Internal Federation Credits, but to my immense disappointment the only ship that was going to Adigeon Prime seemed to be an Antican ship and they weren't Federation, which means they wouldn't accept IFCs, the only currency I had enough of to make my way to and from Adigeon Prime. I sensed a major headache coming my way and massaged the area bellow my antennae accordingly.

Okay, quick economics lesson, the Federation Economy essentially being a carbon copy of the Cuban Economy, but with Replicators and no sanctions up the ass has two types of currencies namely Internal Federation Credits and their 'External' counterparts. In technical terms both worked like cryptocurrencies from my time, the problem with the former is that it can only be used by Federation citizens and it is not completely decentralized, meaning the Central Bank can inflate or deflate it at will and Section 31 theoretically could know (read: totally knows) everything you're replicating and probably has an A.I assessing your potential threat to the Federation which is why I haven't replicated any of the things I know for a fact could give me superpowers until I can figure out how to hack and create a custom O.S for a replicator that's just as adverse to tampering if not more so than an Apple Computer. Needless to say, all of this makes IFCs completely worthless to outsiders with any common sense.

External Federation Credits or EFCs on the other hand, don't have all of these problems and therefore can be used to trade with outsiders, the problem is that the exchange rate between the two is to the best of knowledge, astronomical and approval for them was only really granted to fringe colonists who actually needed them to trade with barbarian (read: non-communist) cultures.

In a very Picard like gesture, I put both my palms on my face and _groaned_. I swear, whichever Vulcan came up with the economic system in the Federation deserved a free helicopter ride courtesy of Augusto Pinochet.

I was almost ready to throw in the towel and build my club, that is until I looked up and another very welcome realization hit me as I saw an Andorian family paying the Antican and waltzing through. Goddamnit, for a society that's advanced so much they basically still haven't figured out how to stop people from dodging their subway fares.

Adigeon Prime was well-known for its hospitals so a fair amount of Andorians would go there if their family members needed any special treatments they couldn't get here for some reason and being as deathly pale as I was, I'm pretty sure I could make it convincing.

I put on my best innocent smile and used one of my telepathic gifts that Troy didn't have, I called it Emotional Projection, though I'm sure it had an actual name if I bothered to learn it. Pureblooded Aenar could make people feel whatever they wanted, my ability was weaker only causing a slight bias for their brains to want to feel that emotion as I'd found out through trial and error, aka: by seeing how much easier it was to piss off my brother with and without my ability, for science of course.

I walked up to the two Antican crewmembers, projected a cocktail of compassion and boredom, which go more hand and hand than you'd think, and in a feigned sick voice gained out of practice imitating Ferris Bueller's little stunt several times during my middle school tenure croaked out: "Excuse me mister, my family already went in, but I had to go to the bathroom."

They glanced at each other briefly and the pressure nearly broke my focus on projecting the emotions, _nearly_ being the keyword of that sentence.

"Sure kid, go on through", the voice of a perfectly bored security guard answered my silent prayers. Inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, but outwardly giving a thankful smile I went on through.

_Augmentations_ here we come.


	4. Chapter III

**Chapter III: "Khaaaaan!"******

**Personal Log; Stardate: 21672:**"_Saying Evolution has a plan for us is like saying Gravity has a plan for the moon, it's technically true, but completely asinine at the same time."_

Adigeon Prime was the only M-Class Planet in the Adigeon system and therefore also the only inhabited one. It was discreetly well-known as a Federation Hub for doctors and geneticists who didn't want to deal with all of the Red Tape the Federation would've imposed on them. You see, Genetic Engineering was permissible in the Federation under certain circumstances, genetic diseases as the legal code qualified them were allowed to be corrected, the problem lied in the moral quandary of what a genetic disease was and what was simply an undesired characteristic that the one undergoing the therapy or more often than not their parents didn't want them to have.

This murky '_line in the sand_' causes no end of bureaucratic induced headaches for both patients and researchers who wanted to cure and study these defects respectively. Down Syndrome is an example of a genetic defect that the Federation has no problem allowing parents to cure before their children are born, on the other hand, color blindness is arguably (_read: by textbook fucking definition_) a genetic disease, but the Federation prohibits its correction through genetic manipulation instead opting for a drug similar to Retinax that can only be administered once the patient has finished growing, therefore assuming the patient is a human he must deal with his or her illness from childhood all the way through adolescence and into early adulthood before finally getting a cure.

The prime example of this sort of nonsense is someone who I'm intimately familiar with despite never having met him in person, him having been one of my favorite characters on TNG, the man the myth the legend, Geordi LaForge.

To the best of my knowledge the Engineer's blindness was a birth defect and they didn't let his parents use genetic engineering to correct it, but they let them use a first-of-its-kind cybernetic implant that boosts his senses to a level beyond a baseline human and causes him pain, not to mention an unquenchable psychological hunger for regular sight?

"_Where the fuck's the logic?!_" I nearly said aloud before I remembered I was walking through the corridors of a hospital.

A very nice hospital as well it must be said, though the clinical white aesthetic and smell of disinfectant was still present in hospitals from this day and age it seems, which was mildly disappointing, but not entirely unexpected considering it was still the easiest and most cost-effective way to sterilize the environment.

I was making my way to the office of a Doctor Thrax, who funnily enough was of the same species as Doctor Phlox from '_Star Trek: Enterprise_', but as far as the gossip surrounding the guy was concerned that's as far as the similarities went. I had loitered around the cafeteria for a few hours to ascertain which Doctor would be the likeliest to help me, not all geneticists were immoral bastards who would just say 'sure kid let me give you superpowers without parent's permission' after all. And the only one who fit the bill was , according to some of his colleagues I was eavesdropping on, the good doctor was kind of like Doctor House, in that his vindictiveness shone as much in his verbal jabs as making his colleagues look incompetent by messing with them in unforeseen ways and he was a researcher who cared very little for technicalities like the law as long as it produced worthwhile results. It didn't endear him to the staff or other medical practitioners, but his reputation certainly put his resume at the top of my list.

Which is why I currently found myself standing in front of the door to his office having second thoughts about this whole endeavor and almost chickening out, but before I could turn tail, go home and further contemplate the best way to break a crustaceans' shell, I remembered a saying that had stuck with me from earth: "_The higher the mountain the more treacherous the climb._" I snorted morosely, yet somehow the realization that this whole endeavor was going to get a lot harder before it got any easier made me steel myself.

I drew on every single facet of my self-confidence and utter belief in my success and projected it outwards, I froze my expression into one that quite nicely resembles Charles Dance's portrayal of Tywin Lannister, a face that says '_I'm fully able and willing to murder you if you don't do what I say._' The fact that this must've looked comical on a child escaped me at the time, but hey what can you do?

And like an idiot, I almost physically knocked on the solid steel door before remembering that in this day and age people used something called doorbells. I sheepishly reached up to press the button and a familiar chime reminiscent of the one that could be heard on a Galaxy-Class Starship echoed through the corridor I was standing in.

Dr. Thrax must've heard it too, because a loud "Come in," quickly followed it.

The doors whooshed open and I strode in like I owned the place, pulled up a chair and sat down in front of his elegant yet sparsely decorated desk.

He blinked a few times probably disbelieving of what he was seeing, even though with all the weird shit that happens in this galaxy on a daily basis this probably wouldn't even rank in the top one hundred and that's taking into account the fact that I'm a reincarnate from another universe.

"Um, can I help you, young man?", he said with an inscrutable expression.

"Yes, you can, you see I heard down the grapevine that you're an excellent geneticist-"

He held up a hand to interrupt me and the man exuded the sort of charisma that when he wanted to speak you _listened_, so I did just that.

"First of all, I'm not going to give you an Augmentation," I began to interrupt but he interjected with a sharp, "let me finish, look kid you're not the first one to ask me to give him enhancements, normally they're teenagers who are still dreaming of becoming the second coming of Captain Kirk and with them I can give them the very real explanation that they're too old to change anything in their genome safely, but since that would be a lie with you I'll say that these changes are very illegal, practically irreversible and very expensive.", he glared at me daring to defy what he just said, so I did just that.

"I don't want them for their own sake or to outdo someone because of a misguided sense of hero worship," I said simply, and he raised an eyebrow seemingly asking me to continue.

"I need these Augmentations to _survive_," he looked as skeptical as someone with his race's facial features possibly could, but I pressed on, "there's a war coming I don't know when and I don't know who we'll be fighting, but it's coming. The Cardassians grow bolder every day, our treaty with the Klingons has held for a long time, long enough that most of their warriors are burning for the next war and Q-knows what the Romulans have been up to during the last century."

He conceded some of my points with a nod and he raised an eyebrow at my substitution of God with Q or maybe my use of the old idiom in the largely atheistic Federation, but he didn't comment on it.

"Assuming all of this is true, and I can't deny you have a point,", he said gravely, "I still don't see why you of all people would need Augmentations, I admit my knowledge on Andorian growth-spurts is fairly limited, but you don't look any older than eleven standard years to me. From what I've observed your intellect is far above the baseline for your age and species, I'm sure if you put your mind to it you can accomplish whatever it is you want to without my help."

I gave him what can only be described as a weird look. "You… Don't know much about Federation Wartime Policies, do you doctor?"

"I'll admit a certain ignorance in that particular area." He said with a shrug, which in my mind raised my respect of the man, even more, few were the people who would easily admit ignorance on a particular subject, fewer still the academics who would do the same.

"There's a particular race that's used as cannon-fodder during wartime…" I volunteered and a look of dawning comprehension began to play on his features as he muttered a: "_makes sense they'd use Andorians as grunts._"

"I grudgingly see your point kid; you're worried about dying from a single phaser blast or having to engage a Klingon with much more endurance in melee combat."

I nodded sharply, '_This guy's good, the main weaknesses of Andorians are our fast metabolism, which leaves us prone to infections and our lack of endurance that let a guy like Archer win a duel against a more seasoned Andorian warrior._'

"Still…" He began rubbing his chin irritably, but I didn't even need Telepathy to know that I'd cleared the first metaphorical hurdle in our discussion, "What's in it for me?"

I gave him the most deadpan expression I could muster and in a very dry tone said: "Helping a child survive what will probably be the largest conflict yet seen in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants."

"You won't be a child by the time it happens." He shot back with perfect seriousness.

I couldn't help it, for the first time in a long time I let out a loud genuine series of guffaws that literally had me wiping the tears from my face, Doctor Thrax seemed a bit unsettled by my reaction at first, seeing as the psychopath probably meant what he said, but then seemed to find the humor in it and joined my laughter obviously to a lesser degree than my own, but still.

I really couldn't help laughing, it was the first time someone had said something so genuinely funny to me ever since I was reborn, I hadn't realized before now how tiring it had become to try and amuse myself with jokes I couldn't tell any Andorian adults because my ass would get lynched and my peers wouldn't get because they were too morbid.

"Alright, alright it's not like doctors are supposed to help their patients survive or anything…"

He shot me a dirty look, though it lacked any heat and the smile he sported since I laughed never left his face.

_Ye gads, methinks I've found someone who understands real comedy in this century!_

"At any rate, how would you like the opportunity to find out how Accelerated Neural Critical Pathway Formation influences a Telepath's abilities."

"Oh?" He said feigning disinterest, but I could I had peaked it, "Are you half Betazoid or something."

"Half-Aenar," I dropped the bombshell that I'd been holding in reserve for the entire conversation, now he was gazing at me like a Zoologist would a previously undiscovered animal.

"Ok kid, even if you didn't have telepathy, I'm sure you know I'm interested in seeing how this plays out, so let's talk shop, what Augs do you want."

"Well, ANCPF for a start…"

"Yes, yes, that's the prerequisite for this whole thing, now what else are you going to wring from this helpless old man?"

I smiled at him, "Any and all Augmentations that produce similar results to that of Khan Noonien Singh's, so long as they don't make me emotionally unstable."

He raised an eyebrow, but his eyes twinkled in the same way mine did when he made me laugh, they both communicated the same message after all, _kindred spirit_.

"You'd be surprised how much the field has advanced in two hundred years kid," he said with a voice that was practically dripping with sarcasm, "So, yes, what you're asking for is doable and you'll be lifting middle-aged Russians in their EVA-Suits in no time."

'_Was that, was that a Wrath of Khan reference?!_', the shock of the thought must've shown on my face, because he rolled his eyes condescendingly and said: "Yes, kid I've read Captain Kirk's Memoirs too, you aren't the only one with a passing interest in living legends."

'_So those are a thing, huh? Should probably read those as soon as the opportunity arises, even though I'll know all of the exciting stuff from TOS I can at least see if the government classified some stuff (which they totally did)._'

"Wait there's one other thing." He just gave me a bland look that said, '_Whatever it is just say it, I want to get started now!_', "I know it's not exactly your field of expertise, but do you think you could get me a Graphene Bone Weave on my skeleton that'll grow with me?"

He seemed thoughtful for a moment, "Sure, that procedure's easy and common enough with species' whose home planets have a smaller gravity than M-Class Standard, but why would you want it?"

"My bones would be much harder to break."

"You really are a paranoid little brat, aren't you?" He asked rhetorically.

"It's not paranoia if someone's out to get you," I answered him anyway.


	5. Chapter IV

**Chapter IV: Entrance Exam******

**Personal Log; Stardate 22946:** "_Friends should be kept in view and rivals should be kept in reach; both are equally important for development. The former greases the wheels while the latter is akin to a whetstone that sharpens the mind."_

The room in which the entrance exams for Starfleet Academy were to be held in was almost exactly as I remembered it from the TNG episode: _Coming of Age_. It made sense that Starbases would be designed with similar if not exact layouts as to facilitate navigating them especially if a member of the staff was transferred from one Starbase to another.

The Romans had done the same thing with their war camps and settlements if I wasn't mistaken and it was actually kind of refreshing to see that the Federation wasn't wholly strategically incompetent as the designs for their ships would otherwise suggest.

In truth my only real gripe with the accommodations were the stools they had provided us to sit in front of the Terminals where we would be tested, they were less comfortable than bar stools at a rundown pub in Ireland I had visited during my last life and they certainly made a little bit of last-minute meditation to calm my nerves a harrowing task.

I wasn't nervous about the test itself mind you, I had gone over the material several times ever since I graduated High-School at fifteen and even if I hadn't my Augmentations were good enough for me to be able to extrapolate Warp Theory from Einstein's Theory of Relativity, no, what I was nervous about however was the Psychology Test. Even now I was sure that they had people watching us finalists like hawks to see how we reacted under pressure and I was equally sure that they had people go through our entire profiles and mine wasn't exactly what one would call glowing.

The stellar example that other Antisocial prodigies had left throughout history wouldn't be in my favor and I couldn't help but wonder what '_pressure points_' the 23rd-century psychologists would discover that even I wasn't aware of.

"Excuse me, may I ask what you're doing?" A calm voice, which wouldn't be out of place on a text to speech program jolted me out of my musings, though I had, of course, heard the perpetrator's footsteps before _she_ (going by the pace of the steps) had entered the room.

"Using a human mnemonic technique to revise the material of the test," I answered the Vulcan girl matter-of-factly and my answer was partially true. I had indeed been using my Mind Palace, for which I chose my old childhood home, to run through important information again.

"I see," She replied seemingly with disinterest, but her brows furrowed in concentration a few moments afterward, "I mean no offense, though I'm sure I will give it as I am not aware of the social protocol that is usually observed among your race, may I inquire as to your name?"

I quickly used my Telepathy on her to ascertain what the flow of this conversation would be, but it was like trying to use it on a brick wall, nothing. I hummed in the privacy of my own mind. It s_eems those Vulcan emotional repressing techniques work quite well_.

The corners of my lips twitched upwards, "You may refer to me as Sharra as my last name will be unpronounceable to you and you should also know that in the custom of most emotional races it is considered polite to introduce oneself first if one wishes to know the other's name."

She nodded and her face, which admittedly was quite attractive, the only off-putting thing being the eyebrows and the fact that it could've been sculpted out of granite, returned to its placid state, "In that case I am Ayhan, my clan-name is likewise unpronounceable to someone not schooled in the Vulcan language."

I nodded good-naturedly, "I see, then it's nice to meet you '_Holy Fire_'."

An eyebrow rose and I almost geeked out, I had met a few Vulcans before and they're all like mildly autistic people, but I had never once seen the classic Spock Eyebrow raise.

"Pardon my surprise," _Only your people would call that reaction surprise, _"I had not expected an Andorian to have knowledge of the Vulcan language."

"Most do not," and for good reason learning Vulcan was like learning Cantonese on steroids, "but I am simply fascinated by the memoirs of certain Vulcan explorers and some terms do not translate well."

She nodded again and a look of realization quickly appeared on her face, before just as quickly being replaced by her inscrutable expression, "Would you happen to be the 'Sharra' who made it to the sixth place in the Federation Stratagema Championship?"

I tried and failed to keep a smug grin off of my face.

"Yes, yes I am."

"I'd thought you'd be much older." She said indifferently, though her emotional walls crumbled for a little while and _envy_ clearly bled out.

It was understandable Stratagema was considered an extremely difficult game for a reason, the best way I could describe it was a 3D fast-paced, real-time version of _Go_, which relied on reflexes as much as it did strategic thinking. The fact that I made it to the sixth place meant I had beaten Grandmasters of the Game when I was fourteen a very impressive achievement only because I was Augmented and had been fairly skilled at Go and Videogames in my last life, but she didn't know the last part.

"Then I look forward to working with you in the future Sharra." The envy turned into resolve before her walls were restored and my respect for the girl rose quite a lot because of this.

"Likewise, Ayhan."

A few minutes after the delightfully awkward conversation (awkward for me, normal for a Vulcan) had passed two other candidates filtered in, both were so mind-numbingly uninteresting that I didn't bother to remember the names, one was a short squat-ugly Tellarite and the other an Arab dude and once the _hello's_ and well-wishes had passed between us and we all sat down at our respective terminals as a grizzled Asian lieutenant walked in.

"Finalists, normally I would ask you to take your seats and I'm pleased to see that won't be necessary," I allowed myself an easy smile,_ I like this guy._

"I am Tactical Officer Hijikata Toshizō, welcome."

I snorted internally,_ "The same name as the Demon Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi, I wonder if he knows that?"_

"You are here because you are all top-candidates. Although only one student will be chosen for the Academy all of you have shown in your preliminary testing that any of you could easily qualify." He said with a slight dramatic flourish as he made to stand in the center of the room.

"Now, this may very well be the most trying experience off your lives and the most exciting challenge at the same time, expect the unexpected and may you all do your best." He said the last with a small smile and turned to leave, I wanted to openly laugh as I knew for a fact that this was the exact speech they had used on Wesley's group, which was either an extraordinary coincidence or was a part of the controlled psych test.

As soon as the Tac Officer exited the room the Terminals turned on and the test began, questions appearing on the screen with the titular orange Federation font. They were mostly along the lines of, "_How long can a Warp Field be maintained under the following conditions?_" "_How did Captain Archer/Kirk do…?_" "_The first five points of the Khitomer Accords were necessary because...?_", so on and so forth with the occasional extremely challenging physics questions thrown our way and I made sure to get half of those wrong just in case this was a test within a test sort-of situation.

I was fine with joining Starfleet to get the know-how before I branched out on my own, but Section 31 was strictly off-limits since I had very little foreknowledge on them.

After a few hours of this, we got a break, which we were all grateful for, even Ayhan although she didn't show it. I went up to the cafeteria replicators to grab a bite to eat.

"Steak, Medium-Rare, a side of Mashed Potatoes, Sparkling Water and some BBQ sauce please.", the replicator chirped in acknowledgment and a few moments later a very delicious looking steak materialized where Air had previously been.

"Thank you," I said pleasantly.

I sat down at a free table and began to wolf down my food with the gusto of a starving man, though I took care not to let any sauce drip down on the black doublet I was wearing. It was custom made seeing as the clothing in the 23rd Century, to put it bluntly, is ridiculous so I had a tailor make something with pockets that resembled the Chiss Uniform minus the blue sash and patches that would've denoted rank and unit.

It was a few minutes of this bliss before Ayhan took a seat in front of me with a plate of what looked like purple broccoli in front of her and began to slowly pick at her food. I raised an eyebrow at her in much the same manner she would to prod her to begin the conversation she so clearly wanted to have.

"I was curious as to how you feel you did on the test so far." She said sheepishly if that was even possible while lacking tone and expression of any kind.

I paused to consider my answer, "Quite well actually, but that's no guarantee I'll pass."

"Oh?"

"The Psychology test," I said simply taking a sip of my water to wash away the lingering taste of the BBQ Sauce.

Both her eyebrows were raised if I didn't pass the test that would be my crowning achievement for the day.

"You fear that you will not pass?" She seemed genuinely surprised that such a thing would prevent one's entry into Starfleet, granted judging by their admiralty they let in lots of unstable people and Vulcans ostensibly purged themselves of such defects when they were children, but still.

"No," I paused to consider what I would say, "I don't fear not passing, I can always try again next year, what I fear is what the test itself will entail."

I sensed that if she was a member of another race she would've smiled, "Is that perhaps your greatest fear?"

"Perhaps," I volunteered, "but the probability would indicate that it is something else, besides one cannot quite test for that"

"True", she replied, "then again neither of us are psychologists." _Lie._

My sense of alertness shot up and I resisted the urge to smile evilly, "But I do have some ideas."

Another eyebrow raises, "Oh?"

"Yes, you see I tend to be very paranoid and slow to trust, a quality that is not good to have in an organization like Starfleet, so I'd say that my greatest fear is someone else knowing what my greatest fear is, in other words, someone knowing my crippling weakness."

She actually smiled that time, but it was stilted, and I could tell it was only to set me at ease. "I'm afraid I have something to confess Mr. Sharra."

_Oh, do tell._

"I am Counselor Ayhan and I was sent to administer your test," she must have noticed the fake look of surprise on my face as she continued to explain, "your greatest fear is admitting what it is to someone you do not unequivocally trust, you have done this and therefore you have confronted and surpassed it, congratulations."

I smiled at her, "Thank you, it was very well done, I would've never suspected a _Vulcan_ Counselor, no offense."

"None taken, but you'd be surprised. Vulcans may not be able to truly understand emotions as you do, but we are always impartial and do not judge people based on what they feel, but what they do and only what they do, meaning our species is in demand as counselors second only to those with Telepathic capabilities."

"_Huh, you learn something new every day,_" I muttered, "I take it you won't be joining us for the next phase of the examinations, then?"

"That would not have been necessary either way." She answered impassively but pulled out her Pad and began to key something up on it.

"And why is that?"

"In the first phase you already accrued more than enough points to pass unlike your fellow examinees and now that your psychological examination is at an end it would be illogical to continue seeing as only one candidate can pass," she paused in thought for a moment, "Officer Toshizō would've liked to have said this to you first and will doubtless say it again despite its redundancy now that I've briefed you on it, but congratulations and welcome to Starfleet Academy, Cadet."

I smiled and shook her hand, then made my way to see the Tac Officer.

I wanted to laugh at the irony, "_The only reason I passed a test about openness and honesty was that I didn't disclose my Telepathy in my application._"


	6. Chapter V

Chapter V: Sharra's Universal Robots

**Personal Log; Stardate 23642:** "_It'll all vanish, like tears in the rain."_

"You know, if you wanted to observe human behavior this isn't the best place to do it," I drawled impassively and the very pale looking humanoid peered up at me, his expression never seemed quite right as his greenish eyes assessed me calculatingly.

His positronic brain had probably been running several calculations, trying to find out if he knew who I was before coming up blank, then shifting to diagnose possible errors in whatever part regulated his memory. Afterward it may have shifted to find out how many Andorians he'd ever seen and from there he realized I was the solitary pale Andorian who sat at the back of our Informatics class who kept to himself yet scored excellent grades, but with whom he had never exchanged a word, then his brain shifted once again and he used his deductive capabilities, which I knew to be very well developed if the _Moriarty_ Episode was any indication and promptly learned more about me than my closest friends knew (admittedly not saying much in my case).

With this information coupled with his limited social acumen, he realized it would probably come off creepy if he said all of this after having figured it out in under a nano-second and instead shifted to something to set me at ease.

"Apologies, do I know you?" Data asked his face not managing to accurately convey befuddlement as he'd intended, surprisingly the guy looked less like Brent Spiner and more like H.P Lovecraft if he'd had sharper features.

"You're about to." I returned with a grin, then pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him, "We haven't officially introduced ourselves, my name's Sharra we have the same Advanced Informatics class, it's nice to officially meet you."

"I see, my name is Data it is likewise nice to formally make your acquaintance," he said awkwardly offering his hand I offered my own and we shook just long enough for it to be weird.

Before he could get a word in I gestured for the Waiter and he nodded once, I frequented the Bar near the Academy that almost exclusively catered to Cadets quite a lot and by now they knew that more often than not I asked for _Don Julio 70_, expensive Tequila but very good shit with my new Andorian taste buds.

He paused before he resumed speaking seemingly to get his thoughts in order, but I knew full well he already knew what he wanted to say before I had even introduced myself, a consequence of his ginormous computational power coupled with algorithms that mimicked the way human conversations were meant to go.

"You said earlier that this was not the place to observe human behavior, may I inquire as to how you arrived at that assumption."

I shrugged with practiced ease, "Tell me Data, what do you suppose is the purpose of a Bar?"

He mulled over my question for a moment, "To become inebriated and socialize."

"Exactly!" I exclaimed enthusiastically, "And you, my new Android friend are doing neither ergo you're observing."

He nodded conceding the point, but he seemed stuck on the fact that I'd called him a friend.

"I was not aware such a short social interaction qualified as friendship, is this custom different among Andorians than it is with humans?" For the first time since I'd spoken to him, he seemed genuinely curious.

"No," I shook my head before taking my shot of Tequila, "it usually doesn't, but friendship ensues when two people agree that they are friends, would you like to be friends?"

He thought for a moment, "Yes, I think I would."

"Then we're friends," I replied with the same certainty I had that were I to jump out of a window I'd hit the ground.

_This must be the weirdest interaction he's ever had and considering his nude walks through his home-planet that's saying a lot._

"You said earlier that a Bar was not a good spot for observation, a crew member of the Tripoli recommended it to me, why is it you believe otherwise?"

"A Bar has many nuances that only exist within its atmosphere and nowhere else," I answered with a shrug, "for someone like yourself who isn't schooled in the reasons for them it could skew your perspective of the causes of certain behaviors."

He seemed disbelieving so I continued, "You see the human male throwing darts over there?" I asked pointing at the one I meant, a human Cadet with a square jaw, broad shoulders, but a crooked nose and freckly skin, which broadly speaking made him look unattractive.

"Yes." He said matter-of-factly.

"Why do you think he's doing it?" I asked with an evil smirk.

"To amuse himself and perhaps his peers."

"I'm afraid you're incorrect," his head swiveled back to me in a manner oddly reminiscent of an owl and the genuine curiosity returned, "while you would be correct in most other contexts at the moment he is attempting and given the fact that he's not very good at this failing to seduce the sole human female in the group near him."

"May I ask how you have reached this conclusion Sharra?"

"Of course, look at the subtle movements, they're all trying to inch closer to the female in question so they can make conversation and they've made the game a competition yet the female is not participating with the same enthusiasm, meaning they are doing it so a primitive part of her brain can rank them based on martial prowess and therefore increase the winner's chances of seducing her, in any other context the female would be playing for the same stakes so to speak."

He nodded sharply, "I see, that was most enlightening it appears I still have much to learn."

_We all do._

The conversation lulled into silence after Data's proclamation, but he broke it again.

"If not a Bar which place would you recommend?"

"I wouldn't recommend any place before you understand certain subtleties…" I pretended to trail off, "In my experience, the best way to understand a species is through their literature-"

"I have already read the collected works of Shakespeare, the Greek classics…", he interrupted first so I didn't have any compunctions about doing the same to him.

"Yes, I thought you might have, but I didn't mean works that were over a millennia-old, I was referring to something which would apply to your situation."

"Is there such a thing in human literature?" My interruption washed over him like waves on the beach and he returned to his childlike curiosity instantly.

"Yes, there is," I answered pleasantly, pulling out my Pad and sending him a text file which included Heinlein's _Stranger in a Strange Land_, PKD's _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_ and a few assorted works by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke and other less well-known sci-fi authors who I felt could help Data in his self-imposed quest to be more human.

_He better be grateful, some of those don't technically exist in this universe, I had to write them down from memory._

His Pad chirped in acknowledgment that it had received the file, he briefly looked at it before turning to me.

"May I assume that these are examples of the literature you were referring to?"

I nodded with a small smile.

"I shall look them over at the earliest opportunity, is there anything else you needed _my friend_?"

The last part came out so stilted and awkward that I had to hold in a bark of laughter but hold it in I did. _Never change Data, never change._

"Yes, I was wondering if you played an instrument."

"Theoretically I can play any human instrument there is, though I have only ever played the violin, flute, and guitar."

"Do you want to start a band?"  
_  
He said yes_. 


	7. Chapter VI

**Chapter VI: The Kobayashi Maru******

**Personal Log; Stardate 23782:** "_Life can be said to be a no-win scenario._"

Cadet Calvin "_Cal_" Hudson spun around slowly to take in the sights that were being projected inside of Holosuite 4-D. He had, of course, visited the new Holosuites before, but up until now had only ever used them along with his fellow Cadets on the Command Track for training purposes, meaning that he'd only seen the inside of several different kinds of Federation Ships being projected.

Never something that could be described as '_outdoors_' like what he was seeing right now. He knew intellectually that the Holosuite was tricking his brain using a complex combination of forcefields, holograms and a ground that worked like a treadmill to simulate the rocky yet expansive space he currently found himself in, but he couldn't help but be entranced by the attention to detail.

The trees, the rocks, and even the _air_ were like something one could find in the Mediterranean countries, in fact, this place reminded him of the outskirts of Dubrovnik where he and his _dad_…

He quickly shook his head to prevent memories he really didn't want to deal with right now from surfacing and instead refocused on his task. He wasn't here to gawk like a tourist that had never visited Risa after all, no, he was here to find the academy's most well-known eccentric, an Andorian by the name of Sharra.

He had never met the man himself, but his '_exploits_', if one could even call them that, tended to travel down the grapevine pretty fast.

"_Pulling pranks on an Admiral for a week straight without being caught before turning yourself in will do that…_" The thought came to him unbidden, yet he snorted in amusement all the same.

Truth be told the only things that Cal definitively knew about Sharra was that he was a very smart troublemaker on an Engineering track, was friends with the almost equally as well-known Android by the name of Data, whom he'd started a band with, and that they occasionally played their great/godawful (_depending on who you asked_) cello music in the Dogpatch Saloon, though Cal had never heard them play himself.

His musings on the person of interest Professor Halsey had sent him to retrieve were abruptly halted as he heard the shrill scream of a woman whom the grim reaper had penciled in for a sudden visit. He knew that everything was probably fine, Holosuites had safeties and the woman could've been a program herself after all, but his parents had taught him better than to act nonchalant about a cry for help like that.

So, he ran towards it as fast as he could and when he arrived, he noticed that the cry came from the top of a fairly tall stone tower and that a few men approaching it with what seemed to be very ancient earth armor, chainmail, and padded gambesons mostly. While the person he was sent to find guarded the entrance of said tower in gleaming white plate armor and a steel sword so shiny that it seemed to emit light by itself even from its scabbard.

He decided to wait and see how things played out, despite the popular saying about cats, curiosity was the reason he signed on for Starfleet and seeing what the most eccentric person in the Academy considered entertaining was if nothing else worthy of his curiosity even if so far it only looked like the cliché '_princess in a tower_' story, only with the roles of the white knight and dastardly brigands seemingly reversed.

The group of men approached Sharra and the latter flicked open his visor, yet still had a hand on the pommel of his sword in response.

"Lord Stark," Sharra muttered with a resignation so dramatic it could've been described as Shakespearean.

The now named 'lord Stark' nodded his head to indicate respect, before his voice which seemed to have a Northern English accent almost condescendingly asked: "We looked for you on the Trident-"

"-But I wasn't there," Sharra interrupted, the same stony expression he'd always had since flicking his visor up, "woe to your Usurper if I had been."

'Lord Stark' shook his head with increasing frustration, "The Mad King is dead, Rhaegar lies beneath the ground, you have the power to end this and need only stand aside!"

Sharra's lips quirked upwards as if he was about to make fun of the 'lord' with a joke only he could understand and given his retort of, "Your princess is in another castle," that was probably exactly what he did.

By an unseen signal all the men including Sharra drew their swords, the ones who had them raised their shields and all launched themselves at the Andorian with unrelenting fury. The clash that ensued was mesmerizing, at parts seeming more like a dance than a fight, the clang of steel on steel adding a sort of rhythm to the proceedings, but after a few short moments, all of the holographic programs lied 'dead' and Sharra was panting heavily with exertion.

Well, Rule 101 of command was making an impression, so Cal decided to do just that and slowly, even deliberately clapped his hands as Sharra turned to look at him.

"Very nicely done," Cal said legitimately impressed, "though you know there are phasers, now right? There's no need to master sword fighting to such an absurd degree."

Sharra was understandably unbalanced due to the interruption of his Holosuite Program, but to his credit quickly recovered his footing. A loud, "Freeze Program!" Escaped his lips and as if commanded by God himself the flow of time in the miniature world of the Holosuite, barring Sharra and himself, completely stopped, even the simulation of the air and a bird that was flying overhead froze in place.

"And yet melee combat still happens," Sharra shot back with a shrug, "even if it's only against Klingons I'd still rather be able to defend myself."

Cal barked out a chuckle at that, "Very true, but shouldn't you leave those concerns to Tactical?"

Sharra shrugged again, Cal realized that the very human gesture of indifference came easily to the man, "Sure, so long as those in Command leave interrupting fantasies to the Councilors, I'm happy to compartmentalize."

Cal shot him a faux wounded look, "Touché."

The conversation lulled into silence for a few moments, but the Andorian broke it.

"So, may I ask why you're here? I don't often get visitors in the Holosuites, a good thing too because I'm usually doing _other things_ here." The last part was said with a lecherous grin and a wagging of eyebrows to indicate exactly what those other things were, and it made Cal involuntarily grimace in disgust before he got his game face firmly on.

"Professor Halsey requested your presence," Cal said simply.

"The one for Naval Combat?" Sharra asked seemed to ask himself more than him, but Cal still answered.

"That's the one."

"Hmm… I don't recall doing anything to her, did she say why she wanted to see me?" Sharra asked with complete seriousness.

"Wait, you mean you actually don't know?!" Cal exclaimed and Sharra looked even more confused than before which answered his question, "You scored at the top of every single Naval Combat Simulation, and it's a tradition for the Cadet that does so to run the Kobayashi Maru as Captain with the rest of the people taking the class."

"You realize I'm not in your class, I'm an engineer."

"Doesn't change the fact the professor still wants you to be the captain." Now it was Cal's turn to shrug.

Sharra seemed genuinely shocked that this was the case, but his features rapidly morphed into a smug grin. _Prick._

"Sure, why not, when is it?"

"Now actually, two Holosuites down," Cal pointed to what may have been the right on the 'outside', "we were supposed to do this fifteen minutes ago, but Professor Halsey was doublechecking the rankings and found out you beat my friend by a substantial margin, so she asked me to look for you."

Sharra accepted this explanation without much hassle and as they made their way to the other Holosuite asked: "Out of curiosity, who's this friend that's going to be my new first officer?"

"His name's Benjamin Sisko, don't tell him I said this, but he's actually a pretty good Commander."

Cal could've sworn Sharra chocked on air when he said the name but didn't want to delay any further, Halsey could be a taskmaster when she wanted to be after all.

When they stepped through the arch, the entire class looked at them like they'd grown a second head, it was only after a few seconds that Cal realized it was because Sharra was still wearing the plate armor from his private Holosuite simulation.

Sharra must've realized it as well, but he didn't look at all perturbed, instead, his gaze roamed over everyone on the 'bridge' with cold indifference, but he did give a nod of respect when his gaze landed on the Professor, one which Halsey returned.

The Andorian very deliberately paced towards the captain's chair before sitting down, giving every '_crewmember_' ample opportunity to restore proper decorum, a chance which all of them wisely took.

"First Officer Sisko…", Sharra began with an eerily quiet voice that had a silky quality to it and forced every person on the bridge to give him their undivided attention and lean in slightly closer to hear what their new captain was saying.

"_A smart way to get respect from a crew that doesn't know you_", Cal thought as he took his own station at tactical.

"Yes sir?", he noticed that Ben involuntarily straightened as Sharra's piercing gaze landed on him, the jovial eccentric that had played at being a knight was gone, now a steely-eyed commander remained and Cal noticed that Professor Halsey was also intrigued at the way the simulation was proceeding.

"What are our orders from Starfleet?"

"To patrol the Gamma-Hydra Section 14 along the Klingon Neutral Zone captain.", Ben answered dutifully.

"And how long would it take for us to get there at Warp 4?" This time the question was directed at Ensign Groal, a stocky Tellarite who involuntarily jumped, not having expected a question to be directed at him.

"Approximately 45 Minutes captain," Groal answered with his race's characteristic raspy voice.

"Make it so." Sharra said simply and their 'ship', sped away. Cal could tell his classmates were vaguely disappointed. The Andorian's reputation and his results on the other Simulations indicated that he would've had a unique approach. Unbeknownst to them at the time that was exactly what they would get.

Five minutes into their 'voyage', Captain Sharra broke the blissful silence and lacking a com-badge used the panel on the captain's chair to contact Engineering.

"Captain to Chief Engineer." This time his voice had a normal volume.

"Chief Engineer Alieth, at your service captain," the measured voice of a Vulcan female that the Engineering track had loaned them for the duration of the simulation rebounded off the speakers strategically located throughout the bridge.

"Commander Alieth, how long would it take for you to outfit 10 Class 5 probes with wide-range ECMs?"

If Sharra didn't have everyone's absolute undivided attention before he certainly had it now, professor Halsey was making notes on her Pad and blinking owlishly presumably due to the odd request.

To her credit, this Alieth that the professor had borrowed only paused for a few seconds before delivering her answer, "I would estimate around an hour captain-"

"Get it done in half, Sharra out," the captain said before cutting the connection and glaring at everyone who was paying more attention to the conversation that had just occurred than to their own assigned tasks.

_Cal would forever deny he was one of them._

Eventually, they reached Gamma-Hydra and Alieth reported that the probes had been completed on time, much to the captain's delight as he complimented Alieth on her skills, though the Vulcan obviously did not give any outward appreciation to such compliments.

Once they'd reached the system the dreaded line that every cadet had been expecting was spoken by Cal himself, "Captain, we're receiving a distress signal from the Kobayashi Maru, Mark 104 320."

"On screen."

The screen went from displaying the expansive vacuum of space to simple static as the alert that had become notorious among every Starfleet Cadet on a Command track sounded out.

"_This is the Kobayashi Maru, we have struck a provictive mine and have lost all power, all-_", the captain made a gesture that Cal correctly interpreted as 'off-screen'.

"Life Signs?" Sharra asked the human sitting at the science station, who briefly checked his console and muttered, "Affirmative, 47 life signs aboard."

"Yellow Alert," Sharra ordered and Ben acquiesced, tapping a button on his chair as the lights dimmed and gained a yellowish tint.

"Prepare high-yield Photon Torpedoes," Cal nodded and did as asked.

"Transporter Room 2", Sharra said as he contacted it via captain's chair.

"Um, yes-captain?" The voice of a nervous Cadet who was not expecting to be called sounded from the speakers.

"Prepare to get a lock on the survivors and beam them up as quickly as you can."

"Yes, Captain!" The cadet returned more confidently now that he knew his task.

"Oh, and Cadet…" the captain began with menace.

"Uhm, yes captain?" All the wind drained out of his sails due to Sharra's tone.

"If you're not faster than greased lightning I'll strangle you with your own guts."

"Yes captain?" The cadet said suddenly very nervous, some were tempted to laugh, but refrained due to Professor Halsey's disapproving frown.

Sharra got up and to everyone's surprise relieved the Tellarite ensign, briefly assuring him that he'd done a fine job, but that this maneuver would require extremely fast reflexes. Oddly enough, Cal could've sworn he'd heard a very, very quiet, "_I'm about to do what's called a Pro-Gamer move,_" as the captain sat down, but he put it out of his mind in favor of focusing on the execution of Sharra's new stratagem.

As their ship approached the Kobayashi Maru, three Klingon Birds of Prey decloaked and began firing on them, Sharra used the textbook evasive maneuvers, but as soon as all of the survivors were beamed aboard he went to maximum warp and stopped just short of crashing into the Klingon Bird of Prey in the middle, the confused Klingons fired at the position that their ship previously held as Sharra unleashed both his probes and the high-yield torpedoes and nearly in the same instant turned in the other direction at Maximum Warp.

Everyone cheered as they realized that Sharra had asked for the EMC probes to hamper the Klingon's long-range sensors to prevent them from following their ship at Warp since it had been damaged in the fighting and they could no-longer outrun them _and the maneuver he used was simply brilliant!_

It was during this revelry at ostensibly being the only batch of Cadets aside from the ones who had taken the test alongside Captain Kirk to ever beat the 'unwinnable scenario' that a Klingon Warship materialized literally from out of nowhere in front of them and with a few well-placed shots completely destroyed their ship.

Almost everyone groaned in frustration, but the captain just muttered: "I take it back, it is harder than Dark Souls." Not that Cal knew what that meant_, some difficult Andorian custom perhaps?_

Sharra would go on to receive a commendation, in fact he was the first person in Starfleet History to receive the _Grankite Order of Tactics_, _Class of Excellence_, before having graduated the academy for inventing a maneuver that was now taught as part of the standard class on tactics and that Professor Halsey in her report had christened the _Sharra Maneuver_, a name, which much to Sharra's surprising annoyance considering his narcissism, had stuck.


	8. Interlude

**Interlude: Weed, Mandroids and Aliens******

**Personal Log; Gregorian 2343:** "_So, I figured out how to change the date to something approaching sensible on my Pad's OS… that's a thing._"

"So, that's it, huh?" Drawled Boothby feeling… well, disappointed might be a little too harsh, but let-down was accurate enough given how excited Sharra was about this simple plant.

"What do you mean 'that's it'?" Sharra countered, not even angrily just genuinely bewildered that Boothby wasn't as excited about the plant as the Andorian.

"Well, I mean it's just a bush isn't it?" Boothby said more to himself than to the Cadet who had befriended him almost as soon as he'd entered the Academy. Sharra was a nice kid, they'd shared a few drinks and Sharra would trade old earth music that he'd 're-mastered' in exchange for war-stories from Boothby's glory days, but sometimes he was too…mercurial, for lack of a better word.

"No, this Boothby, this is _Mary Jane_."

Now would be one of those times, given that he'd been fussing over this one plant that he was growing in a pot in his room for over a month now and had named it like one would a pet, the psychological implications of this Boothby didn't even want to contemplate.

Hell, he'd even asked Boothby for supplies and advice concerning the botany, yet he never actually specified which plant he was trying to grow saying that it would be an amazing surprise. But to Boothby it just looked like an ordinary bush, granted the 'five-fingered' leaves were a tad odd, and he'd never seen the like of such a plant before, but overall it just looked like an ordinary tropical plant, albeit one he had never encountered although looking at it more closely… "Is this some kind of mutated wild tobacco?"

Sharra roped an arm around his shoulders, "No, nothing quite so simple you see, this innocuous little 'bush' as you call it," Sharra chuckled when he said 'bush', "was as of two-months ago completely extinct."

"Why?" Certainly, a lot of plants had gone extinct throughout the earth's history, but this particular one didn't look like anything prehistoric; the size was all wrong and it was subsisting on the amount of oxygen that the atmosphere currently held. Making this conundrum a mystery for the amateur botanist.

"An Augment warlord had a genetically modified variant created to wipe the entire genus out," Sharra said with a slight frown.

"But, why?" Once again, the same question, as the answer to the last one had created more mysteries than answers.

"Who knows?" Sharra shrugged breezily, "Might've been for fun or he could've just been inspired by good old Dick Nix."

Boothby didn't get the last reference, then again, he never did, and it never affected the flow of the conversation and he was just fine with that.

"So, where did this one come from?"

"Oh!" Sharra seemed to instantly brighten at the direction the conversation was taking, "I had to find some fossilized seeds to see if I could get an 'organic' variant to grow with uncorrupted genetic material, and you wouldn't believe the hassle to find them, I had to go trekking through the DMZ in Korea!"

"DMZ?" Boothby asked.

"42nd Parallel along the Korean peninsula, there's a big stretch of Biodiversity there due to some… unfortunate historical causes, but hey, it worked out in the end."

"Uh, huh." Boothby decided not to press the issue further and instead return to the topic at hand.

"So, what's so special about it that you decided to bring it back from the dead, so to speak?"

Instead of answering his question verbally Sharra picked up a small wooden box that was lying next to the potted plant and proudly showed off its contents to Boothby.

"Is the Tea from this plant really worth all of the hassle?" The Groundskeeper asked completely seriously and Sharra guffawed.

Boothby scowled slightly, despite being a few decades older than the kid he was making him feel like a child that had just said something remarkably stupid.

Later when Sharra and he were smoking their '_joints_' watching old '_cartoons_' in the Holosuite Boothby would understand just how true that statement was.

**Personal Log; Gregorian 2343**: _"Mayuri was right, anyone in their right mind would despise perfection, there's no more room for imagination, ability or improvement, probably why so many Qs leave the continuum."_

"Alright, let's take it from the top," As soon as Sharra said that the sound of two Cellos playing his 'bastardized' version of Beethoven's 5th symphony completely engulfed the entire room and for a moment Data could imagine he was a human musician during the nineteenth century, standing on a crude wooden stage as a crowd of people in extremely uncomfortable-looking suits politely looked on.

The moment only lasted for just that, however, a moment, then it stopped abruptly when his Andorian friend (a concept the full scope of which the Android still struggled to understand), put down his bow which clearly showed signs of the damage that their very aggressive style of playing caused and let out a frustrated sigh while rubbing the space under his antenna.

"Have you made a mistake?" Data asked, he knew full well that his counterparts' fluctuations, which could be classified as mistakes were within normal parameters, still, it seemed the right thing to ask.

"No," Sharra said tiredly, "I'm just sick of that 'Uncanny Valley' feeling."

Data frowned thoughtfully, the concept of the 'Uncanny Valley' as Sharra had explained it was something he disliked. It was after all a sense all organics had to be unnerved by something artificial and as Sharra described it was a 'gut-feeling' that one couldn't get rid of or trick when it surfaced, making it a potentially unassailable obstacle in his quest to become more human.

"Is my demeanor provoking it?" Data asked curiously, trying to ascertain the root cause of this feeling. Other musicians have told him he lacked 'soul' when he played and what Sharra and he had discussed seemed like it was the root cause of this.

"No, it's not your demeanor…" Sharra's brow furrowed in thought, but unlike the other times they had discussed it, the assertion was rapidly followed by a look of dawning comprehension.

"It's _too_ perfect!" Sharra said almost reverently and Data merely raised an eyebrow silently prodding him to elaborate and elaborate he did.

"Data, the reason why your music sounds off is that every time you play, it sounds exactly the same as the last time."

"Is this not the goal that all musicians strive for?" Data asked curiously.

"Yes and no," Sharra answered simply a quick twitch of the lips the only thing that betrayed his amusement at knowing the fact that Data struggled with such ambiguous wording and would doubtless need even further elaboration.

"All musicians strive towards it, but do they ever achieve it?" Sharra finished.

"No." Data answered matter-of-factly as the realization of what his friend meant finally dawned on him completely, "You are suggesting I deliberately make mistakes to infuse my performance with 'soul'." It wasn't a question.

"Not how I'd put it, but yes." Sharra answered, "Now, shall we try it again?"

Data nodded and once he had finished playing while making minute yet very deliberate 'mistakes' that would be unnoticeable to the organic ear, he felt it was his best performance yet, but for reasons that he could not fully explain.

**Personal Log; Gregorian** **2344**: "Sweat today will save you blood tomorrow; a bruise today will save you a limb tomorrow and fear today will save your life tomorrow."

Michael very deliberately crept towards the lockers on the other end of the corridor without making a _sound_.

A more difficult task than one might imagine seeing as the surface he was standing on was metallic and he was hefting both a crowbar and messenger bag in the same hand. He couldn't complain too much though, he needed both to _survive_, after all, even then it didn't stop him from cursing the Andorian Asshole who'd set him for this kind of training.

Internally cursing, of course, he didn't want to attract _it_ towards him and very deep down he was grateful that Sharra had taken the time to teach a greenhorn Cadet what he knew about combat and tactics, even if his teaching methods would probably shorten Michael's lifespan by a solid decade.

He could practically feel every part of his body slowly dying of stress with every step he took towards his hiding place and his heart, which was already doing a nice impression of a drumbeat nearly leaped out of his chest as one of the Androids drawled its catchphrase of: "_Affordable quality._"

He looked around in much the same vein as a thief who was caught red-handed, albeit a thief in medieval times whose punishment would be the gallows. He didn't dare breathe, but he did allow himself an internal sigh of relief when he realized that the android's voice came from a different room. The relief wouldn't last long, however, as he heard _it_ slobbering from one of the Jeffries Tubes above him.

He threw caution to the wind and ran as fast as he could towards the second locker in the row, but he slammed the door of the first one shut as well.

The slobbering became louder and the ceiling was torn open to reveal _it_. Michael Eddington had never believed in the old earth religious tales of a hell where one would be eternally tortured by Satan's coterie of demons, but at this very moment, Michael just knew he was looking at the lovechild of Beelzebub and a Velociraptor, a lovechild that had it out for him.

The jet-black Alien creature crept through the hall, practically exuding the charisma of a dangerous carnivore who was in its element, a dangerous carnivore who had absolutely no natural predators. Every aspect of the creature was absurd, from its olfactory sense that trumped every predator on Qo'nos to its 'gut-feelings' that resembled that of a human.

Both of these he'd have thought impossible to program into a Holosuite character, but after playing this scenario multiple times _and never winning_, he knew he'd have to do some serious research on AI and if Sharra was to be believed that was where the biggest threat in Tactical would lie in a few years.

The Alien as the other characters in the Holosuite referred to it crept towards the lockers. Michael didn't breathe, his skin began to turn purple and he tried to will himself to stop sweating, in his effort he grit his teeth so hard he thought he heard one snap. But it was fruitful, the alien quickly scanned both lockers before moving on.

A sigh of relief escaped him and in the very same second, before he could even contemplate what he'd done wrong the alien tore through the locker and a sharp claw extended millimeters away from his throat.

Michael did not scream like a bitch, Sharra and Cal who walked in as soon as the simulation reset itself begged to differ.

The phrase: "_Look at his fucking face!_" may have been uttered through tears of laughter by both men several times before they reconciled and went to the Dogpatch Saloon and all ordered very stiff drinks. 


	9. Chapter VII

**hapter VII: A Day in the Life******

**Personal Log, Gregorian 2349**: "_Don't poke a sleeping tiger with a stick unless you're holding a shotgun in your other hand."_

"Captain O'Sullivan to Ensign Sharra, do you read?" Those simple eight words might not seem like much at first glance but hearing them at what both my alarm and biological clock were vehemently telling me was three in the morning was nearly enough to send me into an apoplectic rage.

Instead of giving in to my very tempting urges I simply took a deep breath to both steady and wake myself and through grit teeth answered, "Sharra here Captain."

"Report to the Bridge." The comm-badge chirped back without a single ounce of sympathy at my very real plight, cutting off just in time for the room to resonate with my annoyed groan.

I pinched my nose and let out a long list of expletives at the captain, evolution for giving me the necessity for sleep and whatever the hell we had encountered in space that presumably necessitated my conscious presence. Inadvertently I was reminded of those scenes in TNG where the ship would receive some urgent communique and Picard would get woken up by the comms to receive it, off the top of my head I can think of about nine times that happened in the show all of them with very serious ramifications for the overarching plot.

Turns out real life isn't like that at all, it's much worse, the reality is space doesn't give a shit about anyone who has the balls to travel through it, let alone about anyone's circadian rhythm and even though the U.S.S Helsinki, that is to say the ship I'm currently serving on, doesn't encounter nearly as much bullshit as any Enterprise we still get our fair share of weird shit out here.

"_Weird shit that I apparently have to deal with."_ I thought with an annoyed glare at nothing in particular as I put on my quite frankly ridiculous looking and even less functional jumpsuit, hell, the thing didn't even have pockets and it is way too comfortable for something that a pseudo-military organization would adopt as their uniform, I'm not even exaggerating when I say it is softer than the silk pajamas I was just wearing.

But finally after a quick and very unsatisfying facial rinse in the sonic sink I walked out through the sliding doors of my quarters and out into the cramped hallways of the U.S.S Helsinki, my yellow engineering uniform somehow expertly blending in and contrasting with the pastel color the designer chose for the paneling of said hallways that was apparently standard across all Bradbury-Class ships.

Soon enough I reached the Turbolift doors and like all the others that weren't private quarters on the ship, they opened automatically once I was standing half a meter in front of them.

"Take me to the bridge please." I intoned pleasantly yet still groggily after having my sleep interrupted, partly my fault since I'd been pulling several all-nighters recently trying to design my own version of the Mjolnir Powered Assault Armor, _but so far every material I tested couldn't hold up after four to five phaser shots, let alone a Klingon disruptor…_

After a short and I mean _short_ waiting time, the lift reached the bridge, "_I'd give the Federation that at least,_" I thought with a small smile despite myself, "_they make good elevators._" The eyes of everyone who was on the bridge turned to look at me before confirming I wasn't a threat and returning to their assigned duties.

"Ah Ensign, thank you for coming." Is what the captain said, but what he actually meant was written all over his face. _What the hell took you so long?_

I offered no explanation, instead, I snapped to attention and saluted him, not by pressing the side of my hand to my forehead, but rather by clicking my heels like the Prussian aristocracy used to. "Ensign Sharra at your service captain," I answered with a serious expression and sincerity I didn't feel.

Captain O'Sullivan frowned at my mannerism, while ordinarily, it'd be a sign of respect, Starfleet despises militarism and Captains more often than not hate being seen as soldiers instead of explorers, so even though he was offended he couldn't complain, if it had been anyone else I might've shown some actual respect, but the guy was the kind of commander that liked to swing his dick around by using _Captain's Mast_ to make up absurd rules that interfered with the crew's private time and he'd been hounding my ass since I first got on his ship.

"Thank you, Ensign," Arev, the Vulcan first officer intoned diplomatically, "your record states that you wrote a thesis titled '_Stages of Civilization; And their Characteristics'_ during your time in the academy, is this correct?"

The captain and a few other officers that were on the bridge grimaced involuntarily before schooling their expressions, _most of them that is_. That Thesis had been controversial when I published and controversial is putting it mildly.

It basically detailed my version of the Kardashev Scale, which didn't exist in this timeline, but expanded to account for the more advanced races that somehow transcended their home universes, so basically a scale modified to account for the Q Continuum and other incredibly powerful civilizations in the Star Trek Universe. Yet for some reason, the idea that a race's level of advancement was solely correlated with their energy consumption was one that the Federation as a whole broadly despised and my paper was often critiqued by people who argued that cultural works and guiding philosophies were far more important.

"Yes Commander, may I ask how that pertains to you requesting my presence?" I answered politely.

An unseen signal passed between First Officer and Captain and the latter barked out a sharp, "On Screen."

The viewscreen flickered on to reveal, _a space station_? An intricately constructed one to be sure, but nothing too out of the ordinary, it seemed to have windows and looked like a cross between Deep Space 9 and the city where the Jetsons lived that is if the said city had been spray painted white.

I merely raised an eyebrow at Commander Arev and at my questioning look the viewscreen rapidly flickered to display the technical specs of that station.

"Those fucking madlads," I muttered under my breath, awed despite myself, but then again who wouldn't be. According to the information our sensors had picked up the station was made up of what at first glance seemed like a googolplex of semi-autonomous nanites with a decentralized artificial intelligence responsible for all of them, the processing power of each nanite was something that outclassed Data's by over a factor of ten and if that wasn't impressive enough the whole station was a sort of Dyson Sphere built around a White Dwarf star that was so small I would bet money on it somehow being artificial.

"As you can see Ensign," the polite yet monotone voice of Commander Arev jolted me out of my thoughts, "these people whoever they are, are much more advanced than ourselves, given our mission to explore new life and new civilizations it behooves us to make contact with them."

"I still fail to see why you require my help Commander; did they ask for envoys to meet with them or something?"

"Exactly the opposite," the Captain answered gruffly, "we've been hailing them across all frequencies for about three hours now and they haven't responded at all."

"I assume that there are life signs aboard?"

The Captain gave a hesitant nod, which prompted me to raise my eyebrow once again, this time it was the Security Officer, Brenok if I remembered the name correctly, who answered the unspoken question.

"There are, however, sensors indicate them all to be in some unknown form of Stasis."

_"Ah, so this was it," _I thought with an out of place smile on my face as the facts rapidly became clear to me, this was a species that was not too dissimilar from a few kinds that I'd read about in sci-fi novels back in my first youth. A species that had reached a certain level of technology and then simply plateaued because of advanced virtual reality or something else like it. They no longer saw the need to explore or innovate, content to allow their technology to sustain them while they entertained themselves in fantasy worlds that the otherwise unnecessarily large processing power at their disposal ran. There was something about these kinds of species that they all shared, _they didn't like to be disturbed_.

The thought that we might accidentally provoke their wrath should have filled me with fear, but maybe because of my gut feeling that these aliens wouldn't kill us since doing so would invite more trouble than it was worth or perhaps simply because contrasting with all the shows that I loved in my youth serving on a starship as an engineer was akin to serving on what basically amounted to a cruise as a glorified plumber, only sans the drinking, gambling and overall camaraderie due to the Synthenol, Captain's Mast and my controversiality respectively, to put it simply _I was bored so I only felt a nervous anticipation_.

The realization made me bark out a short laugh.

"Something funny Ensign?" The Captain's attempt at a glare would've made me laugh even more had I been a lesser man, _I was once glared at by an angry Chinese Police officer, this is nothing_.

"Not at all sir, it's just that…" I began leadingly.

"Yes?" The ever-stoic Commander Arev prompted.

"We're like ants compared to them, put simply they have no reason to interact with us. To use an analogy, it would be as if a monkey demanded entry into the bridge to begin throwing its dung everywhere as an attempt at diplomatic contact. As such, I categorically advise you to do _absolutely nothing_." The '_like you usually do_' was only implied through my tone.

The expression of everyone on the bridge soured, with the notable exception of Commander Arev who raised an eyebrow in much the same manner as Spock would've and the Captain whose skin turned so many different colors that I wouldn't have thought it possible for a human.

"Is that all Ensign?" He managed to hiss out through grit teeth.

I merely gave a shallow nod.

"Dismissed."

"Sir!" I clicked my heels once again and walked back to the Turbolift, resisting the urge to show off my shiny metal bird to everyone on the bridge, _Q knows it got me in trouble enough at the Academy…_

I quickly made my way to my quarters knowing what these idiots were probably about to do and once there I found and got into the brace position in the sturdiest corner after putting on my prototype armor.

-oOo-

What Commander Arev was feeling now could have been described as helplessness had he been human, as a Vulcan however, the only thing he actually felt was a numb sense of dread deep in a pit of his stomach.

It was understandable, given that as soon as the Away Team along with the Captain had beamed over to the Space Station, one of its many protrusions broke apart like shattering glass and a swarm of nanites that could somehow fly faster than any Federation Shuttle and had the firepower to match, made their way to the U.S.S Helsinki, wreaking havoc all the while.

"Commander, shields are down…", Lieutenant Brenok began with his usual firm and businesslike tone, "_80 percent?!_" But when he read out the percentage his tone rose a few octaves in alarm, a natural response given that the shields had sustained this amount of damage in under 5 minutes, the energy output for that particular feat alone was something not even worth contemplating.

Before Arev could bark out orders to the Chief Engineer to attempt to restore the shields, the bridge and indeed probably the entire ship lurched wildly beneath them, sending both the Lieutenant and a few Ensigns with less than stable footing sprawling to the ground and forcing Arev to grip the armrests of the Captain's Chair so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"Evasive Maneuvers, Alpha Gamma Theta." He finally managed to calmly instruct after they had gained a small moment of respite from the swarm's relentless assault, the Ensigns did as asked, meanwhile Brenok regained his footing and once again manned his station.

"Lt. Brenok, status report?"

To his credit, the Tellarite tactics officer rapidly regained his professionalism and answered with a crisp, "Decks Seven to Eighteen have been hit the hardest sir, and our phasers," he narrowed his eyes in shocked disbelief, "haven't even scratched them."

Arev furrowed his brow in thought, "Chief Engineer Baelin, full power to the engines, get us out of here, maximum warp."

"Sir!" An Ensign whose name Arev couldn't quite recall at that moment objected, "the Captain and the lieutenant…"

"Are most probably dead by now Ensign, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," Arev responded impassively.

"Aye sir…" he responded sullenly, yet obeyed orders all the same and as the ship turned back to the nearest Starbase like the Devil himself was on their heels.

A Vulcan cannot feel fear, and Arev himself was no exception to this rule, the closest he came, however, was when he sought out the Ensign who had advised against attempting to make contact with the still unknown civilization for help with the after-action report.

Arev had asked him whether Starfleet could expect most if not all Type-2 civilizations to react in such a violent manner, a question which sent the Andorian into an almost hysterical fit of laughter as he responded with: "That wasn't a violent response, that was a warning shot."

Arev could've sworn that that statement made his blood turn to Ice if only for half a second.


	10. Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII: The Edge of Forever

**Personal Log; Gregorian 2355:** "Time is an illusion, linear time doubly so."

Commander Grom hit the entry chime, and the sound it produced wasn't what he'd come to expect on a Federation Ship, but rather something that grated on his ears and vaguely sounded like nails on a chalkboard not that he'd ever actually experienced that sound. He wasn't surprised, Lieutenant Sharra was the kind of guy who'd do something as simple as modifying his chime to annoy any solicitors still_, the Captain recommended him for the mission and when the captain "recommends" something it's an order_.

"Come!" The stiff order that gave him permission reverberated along the hallway and Grom tiredly opened the door of the lieutenant's quarters.

He was greeted by him as well, not dressed in standard Starfleet uniform, but rather a grey "T-Shirt" with an odd logo of a porcupine emblazoned on its front and dark blue pants that were made out of an uncomfortable looking fabric Grom didn't recognize, though the most striking thing was that he was barefoot and deliberately clenching and unclenching his toes on the carpet, a gesture which broke all manner of proper decorum, but since he was off-duty and these were his quarters Grom couldn't actually complain without making an ass of himself.

"Can I help you with anything commander?" Sharra asked airily, still doing the thing with his feet inadvertently drawing Grom's attention and going by the quick upturn of the lips the Tellarite commander managed to catch he knew it too.

He sighed internally, "As a matter of fact you can, the Captain said that you had some experience with Xenoarchaeology."

The Andorian raised one of his eyebrows, "I do, but I very much doubt it's in the capacity you would need."

Grom shook his head, "Actually from what I hear, your focus is on cultures that completely predate the evolution of most Federation species, or at the very least predate when the Vulcans discovered Warp, and given what we've found on the M-Class Planet below, you're just the person we need."

His toes stopped wiggling, "Show me."

Grom passed him the Pad displaying the information on the odd structure they had discovered on the planet below and he noticed Sharra's features shifting in an almost kaleidoscopic way, shock, followed by confusion, followed surprisingly by anger of all things before finally settling on a kind of childlike excitement as a smile, a real genuine smile overtook his features.

"Tell me, was this the course that Starfleet planned for us?" Sharra asked, still glancing at the Pad all the while.

"Why is that important?" Grom asked feeling slightly annoyed, his species had been trying to disprove the stereotype that they argue simply for the sake of being confrontational, but Sharra's entire demeanor made it much more challenging than it needed to be.

"Just answer the question, sir please it may be important," Sharra answered for once his features being a picture of perfect seriousness.

Grom sighed and relented, no matter how troublesome of an officer the Lieutenant was and there was no denying that he was just that, he was also an invaluable member of the crew having single-handedly raised the efficiency of engineering by a staggering amount, _though the Chief Engineer will dispute that_.

"No, the Captain decided to take a detour when of our probes detected a hitherto unknown M-Class Planet, but our original destination was Starbase 404."

Sharra nodded in comprehension while he continued to assimilate the information that their sensors had gathered.

"Any idea if this is an extinct space-faring civilization we're dealing with?" Grom asked after he noticed that Sharra had stopped.

Sharra nodded sharply, "Commander, I'll have to go down there to make sure, however…"

"Yes?" Commander Grom prompted.

"I'm pretty sure we're dealing with an 'extinct' Type-7 Civilization here."

Grom's breath hitched, he knew about the botched First Contact with a Civilization far more advanced than them that the previous Captain of the Helsinki had instigated and the response it had provoked, and safe to say he wasn't eager to make the same mistake, _but on the other hand, if they were extinct…_

"How does a civilization with so much power go extinct?" Grom asked genuinely curious.

Sharra shook his head, "They usually don't unless a more powerful civilization decided to wipe them out for some reason, but in this case, I believe extinct is the incorrect word, transcended would be more accurate."

"Transcended?" the word somehow made the First Officer of the ship even more nervous.

"Yes, they've collectively transcended what we view as life, into something akin to godhood and therefore no longer have any use for their technology or cities they've left behind," Sharra said in much the same manner as an experienced professor lecturing a group of students, "However, I doubt we'll get much if any technology to reverse-engineer."

"How so?"

"Because from what I can tell sir," Sharra began nervously, "this is the oldest structure ever found in the universe, predating Earth's sun by over four and a half billion years, everything usable has probably already decayed, but as I said I'll have to go down to make sure."

Eyes bugged in in surprise over this declaration, "Make it so lieutenant, assemble your own away team and beam down to the planet once you're ready."

Sharra nodded seriously and as Grom was about to leave asked, "Sir, permission to institute specialized uniform code for the duration of the mission?"

He was tempted to say 'No!' on reflex especially considering the number of times Sharra had argued with his superiors on what he viewed as the '_ridiculousness_' of the Starfleet dress code, but thought better of it, of all the complaints one could levy at this particular officer incompetence was not one of them and in this area he seemed to know what he was doing much more than anyone else on the ship.

"Granted. Don't make me regret this Lieutenant."

"Um, sir, why are we wearing these Gas Masks?" Ensign Rodriguez asked me experimentally poking and prodding at the mask made out of dark leather, a material that funnily enough was very rare in clothing during the twenty fourth century and while the other members I had selected for this particular trip didn't ask the question their rude stares gave away the fact that they weren't exactly pleased by me having them wear something that wasn't part of a Starfleet uniform.

The real answer to the question was of course, "_Because I want my coalmine canaries to be dressed for the occasion," _but since I couldn't exactly say that, I needed an excuse and judging by the restless looks these asshats have been giving me ever since Rodriguez asked the question I was going to need one fast.

"Because of the dust," I said simply and nearly cracked a smile at the confused looks they were giving me.

"The dust?" Ensign Chun repeated oddly, but I got the meaning anyway.

"Yup," I said nodding and popping the 'p', "The city down there is mostly constructed out of huge monoliths and while they're not exactly falling apart, they're so old that parts of them have entirely been eroded to dust by the wind and said dust is currently floating around everywhere, it's an unknown material which means we don't know if its nontoxic or any other properties it may have, so breathing it in might not be the smartest thing to do."

This explanation seemed to placate the _dumber than average_ Ensigns I picked out from Security and for a moment I was eternally grateful to my upbringing in the 21st Century which taught me the uses and abuses of bullshit.

However, the third one, an Ensign Thorland if I wasn't mistaken asked the obvious question, "But sir, if that's the case why are you also wearing a leather jacket and cowboy hat, and why do you have a whip for that matter?"

"Because it's one of my fantasies," I answered irreverently, which set off a new round of them grumbling under their breath. _Funny that the truth should disgruntle them more than the lie_, I thought, and since they don't know Indiana Jones, they probably think this is all a part of some weird-ass fetish.

"Alright, quiet down!" I exclaimed clapping my hands and using my telepathy to project a very slight amount of killing intent, which turns out was very much a real thing in the world of telepathy and something predators in the animal world frequently made use of.

Once they had quieted and stood still on the transport pads, I nodded and looked over to the glorified bellhop.

"O'Brien, beam us down," I ordered.

"For the last time, my name is not O'Brien, I don't even think there's a tech with that name posted on the ship, my name is-" He began.

"Oh, just do it!"

A few mumbled swear words, a high-pitched whine and a lot of sparkly lights later we found ourselves on the surface of a planet that looked quite similar to Mars before it was terraformed, except for the large city surrounding us of course.

"Wow," Chan mumbled under his breath and I couldn't help but agree with the sentiment.

All of the buildings were huge monoliths crafted out of what at first glance looked like gold, the architecture was very Greco-Roman, but it had a sort of elegance and magnificence to it that I hadn't seen in any other city before, every wall seemed to have different depictions carved in them, whether they were of the people who lived here or something else I couldn't quite say, but with every step I took I saw something that could've passed for a world wonder anywhere else, which only managed to further confirm my suspicions.

"What is this place?" Rodriguez whispered to herself, and in my head I answered her question, _The City at the Edge of Forever_, an old TOS episode where McCoy gets high as balls and accidentally uses a Star- or I guess Time-Gate and accidentally wipes out the human species before Spock and Kirk go to the 1930s and fix everything. It was understandable that the Federation would make the contents of this planet classified, that didn't mean I wasn't going to abuse it for myself though.

I pulled out my modified tricorder, which was slightly bulkier than the standard Starfleet version, but in exchange, it had more battery life, better sensors, and overall more functionality, hell, I could play the entire Gameboy, NES and Turbografix 16 libraries on this thing!

I switched it on to be able to detect something I dubbed Chronometric Disturbances, a treknobabble sounding word I coined with Data to describe differing phenomena which were able to significantly alter the flow of regular time in a localized space, what "localized" actually meant was up to the user, but in this particular case it meant on the planet's surface and sure enough the little "radar" I had coded for the program rapidly pinged and showed me where I wished to go.

"Follow me," I said and began marching towards the place, and a few minutes later we reached it, a large gate made out of a quartz-like substance looking like it was carved by a blind man with parkinsons.

Everyone circled the odd structure in the middle of the glorious city we had found, no one looked particularly curious or impressed, everyone except me looked disappointed, not to say I looked excited if anything I looked apologetic at what I was about to do.

"For what little it must be worth, your sacrifice will not be in vain." The three Ensigns turned to look at me like I had grown a separate head and I could tell Thorland was about to say something, before he could do so however, the canisters that the three Ensigns had in their gasmasks containing a very specifically calculated amount of anti-matter ruptured after I'd pressed the button on my Tricorder, wiping them out, the only clue as to them having been there were their slightly damaged uniforms and intact communicator badges, the latter of which I proceeded to place in my pocket.

It was an odd thing, this was the first time I had ever killed someone in either life, I felt bad for not feeling bad rather than for actually doing it, maybe I was too desensitized because of all the holodeck sims, maybe it was my Augmentations or maybe it was because I knew it had to be done. I could've knocked them out and wiped their memories afterwards, it would've been more complicated but far from not doable and yet some words I had heard a lifetime ago filtered back into my head.

"_Gold buys silence for a time, death buys it forever._" And this was something that had to remain secret if I didn't want the "Time Cops" on my back.

I tentatively approached the structure, hands clasped firmly behind my back, my whole demeanor practically exuding respect and why wouldn't I? This structure was the place where every single timeline in the Milky Way galaxy converged. Briefly, the Doctor's speech about the untempered schism made its way from my distant memories to the forefront of my mind and I swallowed the cold lump that had formed in my throat.

"Are you willing to answer my questions?" I asked seemingly at thin air.

"I am." The Guardian of Forever responded in the same monotone voice it had used in TOS, glowing every time it pronounced a syllable, it's consciousness pressing against my own through my telepathy, the only way I could describe it was that it was powerful and ancient, like a venerable oak tree, but one that could break time and space if it wanted.

"What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?" I asked with a small smile despite myself.

"The answer is one you would not comprehend, so instead I shall give you the one you seek, 42."

I howled with laughter for a few seconds but composed myself quickly. As odd as it might sound, I didn't wish to waste the Guardian's time. _Now the real meat of why I'm here_.

"Will you open a portal to the place I seek and back?" I asked crossing my fingers in a childish gesture of hope and some ways prayer, this action wasn't crucial to my ultimate plans, but it would speed them up by a considerable margin _and if the guardian doesn't do it three deaths will have been in vain_.

Rather than answering me, the Guardian opened a portal leading towards a jungle. I took a deep breath and told myself it would be fine, I hadn't planned for something like this, but when a golden opportunity that could save untold amounts of lives is handed to you on a silver platter you don't hesitate, you grab that son of a bitch as hard as you can.

I took several deep breaths and sprinted through.

**Excerpt; Lieutenant Sharra: After Action Report Stardate 42356.71**

_"…Having arrived on the planet's surface the away team set out to explore the ruins of the large city, uranium dating from our sensors placed its creation around one and a half million years into the past, however, upon closer examination utilizing the Yusupov Method it turned out that the city predates the formation of Wolf 359's sun by about 5 Billion years. It is thus no surprise that apart from the unknown material utilized in the construction of their buildings and their impressive artwork and architecture, little was salvageable. The only still working piece of technology was sadly what brought 3 out of the 4 members of the away team to their deaths, a machine in the shape of an Arch calling itself the Guardian of Forever that claimed to have been disturbed by humans for the second time, thus killing the human members of the away team, Ensigns Rodriguez, Chan and Thorland, while sparing me as it had yet to encounter an Andorian. It proceeded to show me images of several significant events in Andorian history, before telling me in no uncertain terms to leave, by which I mean striking me with enough force to fling me several meters back and tear my clothing. Therefore, I believe it is a machine meant to catalog the history of other civilizations by extracting it directly from the minds of its members…"_


End file.
